July 27 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. State Department evacuated
its Libyan embassy yesterday, sending staff elsewhere and
advising all American citizens to leave the country after
clashes between militias near the diplomatic offices in Tripoli.

Embassy personnel arrived in Tunisia and will travel from
there to other locations to continue their diplomatic work, U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Paris yesterday.
The evacuees included Marines who provided security at the
embassy and during the relocation, Rear Admiral John Kirby, the
Pentagon press secretary, said in an e-mailed statement. The
operation lasted five hours, Kirby said.

“Freewheeling militia violence” in the Tripoli area
“presents a very real risk for our personnel, so we are
suspending our current diplomatic activities at the embassy, not
closing the embassy but suspending the activities,” Kerry said.
“We are deeply committed and remain committed to the diplomatic
process in Libya.”

The unrest highlights the turmoil that has come to define
Libya’s political situation more than three years after the
ouster and killing of longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi. On Sept.
11, 2012, four Americans including Ambassador Christopher
Stevens were killed in attacks on a diplomatic compound and CIA
outpost in Benghazi, Libya, an incident that sparked a series of
congressional investigations.

The State Department deals with more than 1,000 threats and
incidents annually against U.S. interests overseas, according to
a May report from the Congressional Research Service.

Other Closures

Embassies in Syria and Central African Republic are under
suspended operations, according to the department. Last August
the U.S. shut down almost two dozen embassies and consulates
from West Africa to South Asia in response to terror threats,
reopening most of them one week later.

The evacuation in Libya, while based on specific concerns
about the tumult in that nation, may also reflect heightened
worry about terrorism threats in light of unrest throughout much
of the Middle East and Ukraine, said Jon Alterman, director of
the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington.

The July 17 downing of a Malaysian passenger jetliner in
Ukraine and Norway’s decision to place itself on high terror
alert because of intelligence that nationals from Syria may be
plotting an attack underscore “a world which feels much less
certain and much less secure,” Alterman said yesterday in a
telephone interview. “You don’t know what the bad guys can do,
much less what they will do,” he said.

Libya poses special risks, he said, because of the Benghazi
incident and the nation’s unstable government. “It’s sometimes
hard to know there who exactly we’re dealing with,” he said.

Cautious Attitude

U.S. politics also may have been a factor in the evacuation
decision, Alterman said. “We have a congressional attitude to
look for scandal and malfeasance everywhere,” he said. “This
is making people abundantly cautious.”

U.S. Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, termed the evacuation “the right call”
while also taking President Barack Obama to task.

“Unfortunately, this development was predictable, given
the lack of direction and leadership from this administration”
in its Libya policy since Qaddafi’s ouster, the California
Republican said yesterday in a statement. “Our diplomatic
absence will make the hard task of achieving political stability
in Libya even harder.”

“We can add Libya to the growing list of countries in
North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia where extremist
forces are gaining strength and threatening U.S. interests,” he
said.

‘Not Engaged’

U.S. Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House
intelligence committee, expressed similar views. While saying in
a statement he was “pleased our diplomats are safe,” the
Michigan Republican added: “This is what happens when the
United States is not engaged and lacks a clear foreign policy
that includes strong U.S. leadership.”

The State Department warned U.S. citizens against all
travel to Libya and recommended that Americans who are there
leave immediately. The agency is “currently exploring options
for a permanent return to Tripoli as soon as the security
situation on the ground improves,” Harf said.

The State Department reviewed and changed security
procedures in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack. An
independent U.S. review panel found the department had “grossly
inadequate” security in Benghazi before the attack and needed
to overhaul procedures to correct “systemic failures.”

The panel, appointed by then-Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, found the department showed “a lack of proactive
leadership and management ability.”

Crude Oil

Rivalries between Libyan militias, which have often doubled
as national security forces, have undercut the already-weak
central government’s ability to exert influence and stabilize
the nation that sits atop Africa’s largest proven crude-oil
reserves.

Clashes between rival militias in and around Tripoli’s
international airport have raged for roughly two weeks, leaving
more than 47 dead and largely crippling resident movement in the
area. The fighting has damaged the airport, the control tower
and planes parked at the facility.

The clashes, between an anti-Islamist militia aligned with
a renegade general and pro-Islamists, are a spinoff of the
violence in the country’s eastern region between Islamist
militants and their opponents, headed by General Khalifa Haftar.

The fighting has underscored the central government’s
inability to control the powerful militias that have, since
Qaddafi’s ouster, also doubled as security forces.

Qaddafi’s Rule

Qaddafi ruled Libya for 42 years and his regime was
frequently linked to terrorism abroad, including the mid-flight
1988 bomb explosion that crashed a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie,
Scotland. His ouster, part of a series of Middle East uprisings
known collectively as the Arab Spring, was supported by nations
including the U.S. and hailed at the time as a chance for
democracy to take root in Libya.

With Libya still lacking a strong government, a trove of
weapons looted from armories has provided the necessary
firepower for semi-autonomy bids in the east and sparked worries
among regional neighbors such as Egypt of a spillover of the
violence.

Libya’s daily crude production stood at 450,000 barrels on
July 22, compared with 550,000 barrels the previous week,
according to National Oil spokesman Mohamed Elharari.